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Where to find the cheapest fuel oil isn't easy. While gas & electricity price comparison services are common place, the same isn't true for fuel-oiled heating.

The discussion that follows is a merger or two that contained much information. The answer seems to be 'get lots of quotes, and don't believe the hype'.

In the third message of this discussion you will see a list of comparison sites, and then in the sixth a press release from a newly launched company. Please do enter the discussion, hopefully together as collective MoneySavers we'll find a solution.

I posted this first in the 'I wanna ..' forum, this looks more appropriate.
First price is 24p/litre last week in Cornwall. I'm going to start getting some quotes for myself. If people think it's useful I'll put them up here. I know the suppliers respond to the spot market for oil, but at least some idea of what the going rate is might be useful to somebody, somewhere!

Quotes will be for 1000 litres of standard 28ps heating oil, excluding VAT.

Target price for domestic heating oilDoes anybody know where to find target prices for domestic heating oil (1000 litres of 28ps)? It's pretty unrewarding phoning around all the distrbutors and the boilerjuice and greenwelly (yes really!) websites both returned prices that were worse than I could get straight off the bat.It's hard to believe that in this day and age of consumer regulation up the Ying-Yang there appears to be none that applies to heating oil.

I've just received this press release. I haven't had time to look into it in detail yet. However I would be very interested to hear pricing feedback from anyone who checks/trys it out with their own circumstances.

10 Feb. 05
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Collective Domestic Oil Buying at BoilerJuice Drives Down Costs

According to Oftec*, an estimated 1.5 million homes in the UK and Ireland use oil for domestic heating. Most people buy their oil individually and pay higher than necessary prices. Now, thanks to BoilerJuice (http://www.boilerjuice.com), a new oil users’ buying group, consumers can take advantage of collaborative buying and keep warm at lower cost.

Run by husband and wife team, Paul and Sarah Ward, BoilerJuice is successfully placing orders for homes nationwide, with its membership numbering thousands and growing daily. BoilerJuice uses collective buying power to negotiate the lowest bulk oil prices for members. It automatically selects the lowest price from its affiliated oil suppliers in any given postcode area and allows the oil user to place an order online at any time.

Behind the BoilerJuice website lies a powerful database that enables members to join forces with other oil users in the same postcode area so they can obtain favourable quotes and place orders based on their group’s total volume requirement. This facility allows oil users to order their heating oil alongside local friends, family and neighbours; meaning everyone achieves significant cost savings. Group orders are easily managed via http://www.boilerjuice.com and individual orders can be placed too.

Nationwide oil suppliers are welcoming the benefits gained from coordinated deliveries clustered in one area, which reduces their costs and increases competitiveness. Once an order has been placed with BoilerJuice, the supplier contacts the oil user directly to arrange delivery and payment.

There is no charge for oil users to obtain a quote from BoilerJuice and the service is also free. Users simply enter their postcode and the quantity of oil required. To place an order, the user completes a brief registration process confirming delivery address and tank location.

Paul Ward explains the reason for setting up the buying group: “It seemed crazy to see oil tankers delivering a relatively small amount of heating oil to one household and then returning the next week to deliver to a neighbouring home! We thought we could do something about this and bring savings to householders in the process. It is in everyone’s interest to minimise heavy traffic on our country roads and reduce harmful emissions.”

“It also seemed obvious that, if two or more buyers group their orders, they can obtain a better price for ordering a larger volume of oil. A recent example that shows the idea works was a 40 house delivery to one village. Instead of 40 individual tanker journeys, two tankers did the job in two days. Savings of up to five pence per litre were made, with an average saving of three pence per litre.”

The service is currently available in England and Wales and BoilerJuice is looking to expand into Ireland and Scotland.

This is not the only company doing such offers, it's just the latest (and the press release helps explain things), a post earlier in this discussion listed the following others, for ease I've copied them here. It's worth trying as many as possible - after all a 1p drop in cost is a saving of 4%

Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert.Please note, answers don't constitute financial advice, it is based on generalised journalistic research. Always ensure any decision is made with regards to your own individual circumstance.

That's excellent. I don't have oil-fired central heating myself, but I am very interested in co-operatives. They've been around for a long time, but many people still have no idea about what they are or what they are for.

I belong to a newly formed housing co-op, which, when we get a proper business plan together, should enable us to actually buy a house at last, (or at least live in a house which doesn't belong to somebody else!)

The main three kinds are workers' co-ops, housing co-ops and also buying co-ops, which are a really useful way to save money on buying any number of things. If there is something you buy fairly regularly, (like the fuel oil in Martin's post), and which is much cheaper to buy in bulk but which would either be too expensive or impractical for a single household, it is worth thinking about joining a co-operative.

If you can't find one in your area that meets your needs, you could get together with a few like-minded people and form one yourself. There is a cost involved in setting up what is effectively a limited company, (owned and operated in a mutually beneficial way by its members), but the more people you can get on-board, the smaller proportion of the set-up costs each member has to pay.

Martin, do you think there is room on this forum for a section on co-operatives? I spent a while searching, but couldn't find anything on the subject. I apologise if there are already posts on this, but if there are I couldn't find them.

I think it is an aspect of money saving that it would be nice to explore. Co-ops are great because they encourage people to think in a more community-based way, (not that there's a lack of that on these boards anyway!), and allows the individual consumer to benefit from the economics of scale that are normally only available to a commercial operation.

I'd be interested to know what people think.

PS. There is plenty of info out there on the Net if anyone wants to find out more. You may have to wade through acres of stuff about the Co-operative Bank and the Co-op supermarket, but this should help focus your thoughts on how effective co-ops can to be!
-----------------------------------------------
EDIT: I don't really want to spam up Martin's thread, as this post isn't strictly about fuel or energy, and I'm not sure this is really the right section for it, anyway. Is anyone able to suggest a better place for it? (Mods?) Thanks.

I have been trying to find on the web for ages, information about domestic oil. We will be moving into an area which has oil, rather than mains gas. We are trying to find price comparisons between gas and oil, this is proving difficult as oil is always quoted in volume (litres) and gas is quoted in energy terms, (BTU or KWH), so it is difficult to do a proper comparison. We wanted to know whether it was worth paying to have the conversion to mains gas, or even to go to LPG instead. We can then make a decision on whether this company that you mention is the goer or not. Any ideas??

Users saying Thanks (2)

Working for an oil company myself, we often get asked to do comparisons with gas usage etc. It can be hard to work out, as it depends on what size the property is, how often the heating is used, if there is any extra installation in the property etc. Please also be aware that the normal minimum delivery for home heating oil (kerosine) is 500 litres for health and safety reasons. Also prices are quoted in pence per litre without the VAT added on. Prices can also vary daily or weekly, depending on the company.

Users saying Thanks (1)

While boilerjuice seems like a great concept I was disappointed with the quotes I received.

boilerjuice came in 0.8p/litre higher than other quotes. For my area www.wellieboot.co.uk, another group buying outfit came in cheaper. I fear boilerjuice is playing the seductive old scam of telling you they're cheaper and playing on the intuitive sense that 'If I'm buying in bulk I must be getting a better deal - right?' - wrong! Check the target prices from my thread. Sorry to be negative, but for me boilerjuice was far from a saving!
It grates with my bone idle nature not to let somebody else do the legwork, but for the sake of 5 phone calls I saved 0.8p litre - it might not sound like much but multiplied by 1000 litres and with the 5% VAT is £8.40. I didn't even ask for a discount, just the price on the day for a 1000 litres.

Re bolier juice. Good idea. Although I just tried the quote icon. It was £22 more expensive for 1000ltrs. Bearing in mind I got a fill up last week. I think the idea is good, but it may be best to organise a local group and approach local suppliers and barter. Trouble is we never need oil at the same time.

Our village has formed a group with Q8, which delivers twice a year. Before long we all got into sync (Q8 were happy just to top up in the first instance). We got a good discount, but how it compares with some of those national prices I will need to investigate...will revert.

I ordered some oil today and was quoted between2 23.78 and 24.5 pence per litre for an order of 1000 litres. The cheapest was Bayford Oils, but they couldn't deliver for a week, so got my local one man band, they can sometimes be just as cheap as the big boys, to deliver tomorrow morning for 23.95p. I live in rural North Yorkshire.

My normal supplier is TotalButler at their Southampton Depot, I called them this morning and asked for a quote for 2500 litres and received a price of 24.24 pence per litre.
I requested a quote on-line from Boilerjuice for the same amount and received a quote of 24.70 pence per litre.

Silvey.co.uk could not quote me and Maxoldirect.com was for Ireland only.

Southern Counties came out at 24.95 pence per litre.

However the best quote I could got that delivers in my area (Hampshire) was from Q8 (Reading Depot) at 23.64 pence per litre.

So, in conclusion it seems that traditional suppliers that can deliver to my area give a better price per litre than group purchases. Based on this small sample in my area I plan to either use Q8 or TotalButler

Again, sorry to be negative, but I did not find that BJ were any cheaper, when I tried them; in fact they were a couple of pence a litre dearer! Seems to be no substitute for the laborious task of ringing round all the local suppliers, for a quote, each and every time... (especially as most of them don't seem to respond top e-mails...) I found that Q8 and Oakleys were both reasonable, for Staffs/West mids, at least, but prices do vary dramatically.

Re the question about oil versus LPG: We switched from LPG to oil last year - and found the latter to be vastly less expensive - around 50%! Also, I 've even heard people say that oil can be cheaper than mains gas, tho' that seems harder to believe...

Couple of points to remember:
1. Oil boilers are much noisier than gas ones - so bear this in mind if your boiler is in your kitchen, or near your bedroom, for example.
2. Oil boilers seem to need a lot more servicing than gas ones - essential every year, I am told, whereas our LPG one was serviced two or three times in 20 yrs (yes, I know, I know...)

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